Farewell to Football (1969)

On the heels of his very successful diary of the 1967 season, Instant Replay, Green Bay Packers legendary G Jerry Kramer wrote Farewell to Football. After eleven seasons with the Packers, Kramer had decided to retire from the National Football League and enter the business world. This book tells of that transitional season of 1968 and his moving on in life. 

Front and rear flaps. 

The inside front and back covers have this photo treatment. 

 Jerry Kramer during the 1968 season.

Back cover — the Kramer family in 1969.

Find your copy here.

Jerry Kramer’s

Farewell to Football 

By Jerry Kramer; Edited by Dick Schaap

The World Publishing Company (1969)

199 Pages

We had a request from the Ron Kramer family (no relation to Jerry) to give a nod to their upcoming auction of Green Bay and University of Michigan memorabilia (and some Lions items too). Kramer, who played for the Packers in 1957, and then from 1959-64, passed away in 2010 at the age of 75. At the bottom of the following images are the links for the auction.

To see many more items for auction, and to find out more about the memorabilia seen above, visit the site here.

For the auction details, please go here.

Young Sports Photographer (1969)

Next up in the vast collection of books about the Green Bay Packers is a rare volume that we didn’t know existed until a few years ago. It is Young Sports Photographer with the Green Bay Packers, by John Biever (with George Vecsey). Biever is the son of long-time Packers official team photographer Vernon Biever, who sadly left us during the team’s championship season of 2010. Still behind the camera, John Biever currently works for Sports Illustrated. 

The book’s title page.

 A photo of John at work on the sideline during the Lombardi Era.

John (at right) shoots game action at Lambeau Field alongside his father, Vernon. 

John’s brother Jim (seen here) currently serves as the Packers’ official team photographer.

Find your copy here.

Young Sports Photographer 

with the Green Bay Packers

By John Biever with George Vecsey

W. W. Norton and Company (1969)

186 Pages

Winning Football (1968)

This youth-oriented “how to” book — Winning Football — by Green Bay Packers QB Bart Starr has been in our collection since, well, 1968. It is a neat book, and since it’s Super Sunday, we’re sharing the entire thing for your education and enjoyment! 

Find your copy here.

Winning Football

By Bart Starr

Grow Ahead Sports (1968)

36 Pages

Dave Robinson to Canton!!!

It was announced in New Orleans today at 5:00 p.m. (CDT) that Packers’ LB Dave Robinson has been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and will be inducted with the Class of 2013 in Canton, Ohio. Congratulations, Dave! 

The Greatest Packers of Them All (1968)

Published the same year as Jerry Kramer’s “Instant Replay,” The Greatest Packers of Them All by Milwaukee Journal sportswriter Chuck Johnson spotlights some of the greatest players up to that time in Packers history. Ranging from Don Hutson to current players such as Bart Starr and Willie Davis, we get a look at how the team was seen by the press the year after Vince Lombardi stepped down as head coach. 

Front flap and introduction

Title pages

Back cover

Find your copy here.

The Greatest Packers of Them All

By Chuck Johnson

G. P. Putnam’s Sons 1968

188 Pages

Instant Replay (1968)

“In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. “Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Working with the renowned journalist Dick Schaap, Kramer recorded his day-to-day experiences as a player with perception, honesty, humor, and startling sensitivity. Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the “Ice Bowl,” in which Kramer would play a central role. Nor could he have anticipated that his diary would evolve into a book titled Instant Replay, first published in 1968, that would become a multimillion-copy bestseller and be celebrated by reviewers everywhere, including the Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, who calls it “to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.”

“This groundbreaking look inside the world of professional football is one of the first books ever to take readers into the locker room and reveal the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. From training camp, through the historic Ice Bowl, then into the locker room of Super Bowl II, Kramer provides a captivating player’s perspective on pro football when the game was all blood, grit, and tears. He also offers a rare and insightful view of the team’s storied leader, Coach Vince Lombardi.”

— Amazon Book Description 

Inside front flap

Photos in the book were taken by longtime Packers photographers John and Vernon Biever. 

Back inside flap

Back cover

Find your copy here.

Instant Replay

The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

Edited by Dick Schaap

World Publishing Company 1968

281 Pages